English

2019 marks the 18th performance and 34th anniversary of the Steigen Saga Play. About 200 actors, singers, musicians and technical staff generously give of their time to make Hagbard and Signe's dramatic love story come to life. The play is performed in a natural amphitheatre at Vollmoen, an archaeological site that was a power centre in Iron Age North Norway.

The love story of Hagbard and Signe is known in ballads and re-tellings from all over Scandinavia, but the landscape names at Steig indicate this may be the original site. It is a unique experience to take your place on the hill and get swept away by the story, the actors, the music, the landscape...

The story of Hagbard and Signe

Summary by Bjørn Erik Stemland, the playwright, from his 2005 book "Steigen Saga Play, Legend, Leisure and Cultural Treasure".

Young Hagbard from Vågan, the beautiful Signe from Steig, and her merciless father Sigar, chieftain and priest, the most powerful man in Hålogaland. These are the main characters in this old story of love and power, related to the more famous stories of Bendik and Årolilja, Romeo and Juliet.Sigar has promised his young, beautiful daughter to a Russian prince, Burislav, and the maids at Steig are preparing for the royal wedding. Prominent men from all over Hålogaland have come to the Steigar Thing to put forward their complaints and disputes to the King when suddenly Hagbard appears before King Sigar. He wants to marry Signe, who promised him eternal fidelity before his going west. As Sigar says no, a man's word is his honour, the conflict becomes clear to everyone. But Hagbard knows how to get in touch with his beloved Signe. He dresses in women's robes and asks for a place at the sewing table beside Signe. Telling King Sigar that he is the daughter of the King of Bjarkøy, he is even given leave to share Signe's sleeping chamber.When one of the maids, the evil Beret, discovers what has happened and tells Sigar. He sentences Hagbard to death by hanging, and refuses to hear Signe's pleas. But Hagbard and Signe have agreed to go together to the kingdom of death. Standing at the scaffold, Hagbard asks for a final wish to be granted; that they hang his red robe in the gallows first. When Signe sees this, she sets fire to her maiden's bower and burns herself to death. In this way they can walk the Gjallar Bridge together into Helheim.When the king realises what dreadful consequences his inexorable stubbornness has led to, he orders the evil maid to buried alive.​